


No One Asks Me For Dances (Because I Only Know How To Flail)

by lighterdenial



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Bloodplay, Content Warning: Ianthe Tridentarius, Dubious Consent, Dubious Morality, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Haircuts, Hurt No Comfort, Ianthe Can Only Show Tenderness Roughly, Light Dom/sub, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mommy Issues, Oral Sex, POV Second Person, Pain, Painplay, Power Dynamics, Power Imbalance, Rough Kissing, Rough Oral Sex, Sexual Content, but not the same second person as in HtN, everybody's got mommy issues here, once again I have written Ianthe as a gaslight gatekeep girlboss, sad girls do bad things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 07:40:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30052134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lighterdenial/pseuds/lighterdenial
Summary: Ianthe shows Harrow tenderness the only way she knows how: roughly, first, then through control of Harrow’s appearance with a haircut, and finally, taking her reward from Harrow's body. Set sometime directly after, nebulously, after the arm scene in Harrow the Ninth.
Relationships: Harrowhark Nonagesimus/Ianthe Tridentarius
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	No One Asks Me For Dances (Because I Only Know How To Flail)

“Eyes on me, crazycakes.”

She was pinning you to the bed with her glittering construct arm, but either didn’t know or didn’t care that you could technically control it anytime you wanted. You had gone limp, not bothering to resist. Ianthe would move against you, or she wouldn’t, and you would move with her either way. Her shirt fell open, and you could see that she wore no bra. 

She kissed the same way she killed planets, fluidly, gracefully, like she had plenty of expertise. She probably did, you thought idly. 

You reflected on the choices you had made that got you here. The first furious kiss, really more a character study of jaw and tongue and teeth. How she had said, “Oh, _Harry,_ ” and leaned into you, and instead of pulling away, you let yourself go still. You let her kiss you back, knees hitting the side of the bed and letting her pull you down.

Then you did it again.

And again. 

You couldn’t count the number of times you had surrendered to Ianthe Tridentarius. 

You doubted that this would be the last. 

“I said eyes on me.” She pushed all her weight onto the golden, skeletal arm, straddling you now, using her other hand to grab your jaw and push your cheeks up, gripping hard. When had she stopped kissing you? Obediently, you turned your eyes to her. 

Her hair hung like limp, plain spaghetti, one of the few foods you could tolerate. She had a spatter of blood on her cheek, which did not bother you, and a lazy, predatory look in her eyes – but then again, when didn’t Ianthe look predatory? There was something hungry behind them, too, that you had seen only a few times with her. 

“That’s better.” She leaned down to kiss you again, releasing your jaw and readjusting her grip on your wrists. The unpadded bone pressed into yours, metacarpals and proximal phalanx against your ulna and radius. It hurt, which was good, because it grounded you. She kissed you again, hard. It hurt too, then released you. 

“Up,” she ordered, and you robotically sat up, rubbing your wrists, smoothing your heavy black Ninth robes and pulling the diaphanous Lyctor robe tighter around your frame. You were sure that your paint had been smeared beyond repair, as it usually was by now, but Ianthe had done you the enormous kindness of covering or removing all the mirrors in the small bedchamber. You were thankful. Something was never quite right about your reflection. 

“Stand still for me,” she said, using her flesh hand to comb your hair back from your forehead. “This has gotten so long again.” From a drawer at the bedside, she pulled a pair of golden scissors, their handle in the shape of a long-beaked bird. You thought about what she could do with those scissors – a quick cut to your carotid artery, let you bleed out defenseless on the floor, or your wrists, maybe, gaping vertical cuts from wrist to elbow. Or maybe she’d kill you slow, cut you high on the thigh. It could take days to die that way, if you weren’t Lyctors. She could still do it just for fun.

She started to pull off your robe, and you resisted at first, but she stopped and tilted her head and looked so deeply into your eyes for a disconcerting period of time that you just took a deep breath and decided to let her do whatever she wanted. It had always turned out fine for you up until now anyway. She removed the iridescent robe and draped it over a chair. 

“I’m going to give you a real haircut, Harry,” she drawled, twirling the scissors around one finger. “No more of this… whatever it is. It’s not fitting for a saint.” The last bit was obviously tongue-in-cheek.

“I can do it myself,” you said slowly. 

“I want to.” Careless, but full of something that could have passed for desire in another world. You relented. Businesslike, she started to unbutton the collar of your heavy black robe and slip it off your body. You were done resisting, and you let her remove your outer robe, your inner, sleeveless robe, your tight-laced vest, your exoskeleton - this you removed for her - but stopped her with your hand when she went to lift the hem of your shirt. 

“I need to be able to see what I’m working with. And it’s not anything I haven’t seen before, anyway,” she said with a smirk. The tips of your ears blushed furiously; there was nothing you could say to contradict that. She removed your shirt and your bandeau, sparing you no decency, leaving you in just your loose black pants. The room was cool, and you crossed your arms over your chest, feeling the chill peak your nipples. 

“Stay right there,” she said, and went to the en suite bathroom, returning with a bowl of steaming, fragrant water and a plain white cloth. Placing it on the nightstand next to the bed, she wet the cloth and began to wipe at your face in small, circular motions, removing your paint. 

This was the most care she’d ever put into touching you. Normally she took full advantage of your semi-supernatural healing powers, and you arched into her touch or became a ragdoll for her, depending on the day. This was new. 

You didn’t like to think about how dangerous a tender Ianthe Tridentarius could be. 

Wielding the scissors in her flesh hand, she leaned down and ghosted her lips from your prominent collarbone to where your jaw met your ear, whispering two words that, shamefully, kindled a fire in you: 

_“Be good.”_

Your knees went weak, but you refused to let yourself swoon for her. She had already busied herself with a comb in her construct hand, and she was measuring out strands of your hair, cutting them bluntly in line with your chin. 

“It’s too bad you won’t let me do something with the color,” she said. “You’d be a gorgeous blonde.”

Lies. You’d let her do whatever she wanted to you, and she knew it. Dye your hair? Not even in the top fifty things you were worried about. Let her pretend, though.

You said nothing but tilted your head away from her at her direction, letting her line up more strands. Soon you sat in a semicircle of your own hair, roughly an inch gone, a blunt jaw-length bob in its place. She went about fussing with it in places, making sure it sat straight, adding some kind of cream that smoothed and straightened the bits where it had always been rougher and wavy. You guessed that it was the same product she used in her own hair; it smelled uniquely of her. 

“Don’t you look pretty,” she said, handing you a mirror. Your own startling eyes looked out at you from within a semi-stranger’s face. Aside from the sunken eyes and cracked lips, you looked almost domesticated.

“Almost like a princess of Ida,” she said, putting into words what you could not – or would not. You flinched. “But then again, no.” She laughed, humorlessly. “Gold isn’t your color, but…” she trailed off, fixing the strands of hair framing your face. 

Putting a little oil on her fingers from a small bottle, Ianthe worked it into your hair. You closed your eyes and leaned into her touch involuntarily. You made a small sound. 

“You like this,” she said, delighted. “I knew it.” She continued for a few more minutes, working the floral oil through the roots to the tips of your newly cut hair. You didn’t like how sharp the angles of the bob were. It didn’t feel like you – but then again, what did? 

“There.” A few minutes later, you didn’t have a hair out of place. She tilted your chin left and right, gently rearranging your hair, making sure it was even. “All finished.” 

You rolled your neck experimentally. She brushed the stray hairs from your shoulders. 

“Aren’t you going to say thank you?” She was moving to undress herself in quick, fluid motions, none of your earlier modesty, soon naked as the day she was born. She was sitting on the side of the bed, spreading her legs, and you knew what you were supposed to do.

With hesitant movements you came and knelt in front of her. She pushed your head down none too gently against the base of her pelvis, short golden hairs just beginning to regrow at the join of her legs. 

“Show some appreciation,” she said, and you lowered your head and obediently licked her slit once from bottom to top. She gasped. You knew by now what she liked and set to work.

At first you had disliked the way she tasted; it was much too strong, but now you had become used to the flavor. She had an earthy taste, but not like dirt, like fresh fungi newly sprouted from the earth where the sun didn’t shine. If you had to guess, her pussy tasted like secrets. 

You focused specifically on her clit, the way you knew she wanted it, and used your tongue to draw circles around it. She threw her head back and moaned, not given to discretion. You worked her like you were working on a particularly snarled necromantic theorem but with none of the passion. For you, this was mechanical. 

She pushed you further into her until your bones ground together, using her construct hand to fist in your fresh haircut. You could feel your nose start to bleed from the pressure she was putting on you, and you wondered how your body would be reacting to this without Lyctor powers aiding your healing. 

“Put your fingers in me,” she ordered above you. She was touching her breasts, fingers tearing at her own nipples in a way even you would dislike because of how painful it was, and you supposed that she was a flesh magician and as such entitled to treat her flesh however she wanted, but still. It didn’t look comfortable. She was moaning, long and throaty. 

It must be embarrassment you were feeling, but you put two fingers inside of her anyway. 

“More,” she urged. “You’re too small.” A hot little raged flared up in your chest at that, and you pushed two more fingers in, not caring if it hurt her, because clearly, she didn’t. There was blood on her fingers. There was blood in your mouth, and you were leaning up to take one of her nipples in your mouth and bite at them with your sharp little teeth. 

“Yes,” she hissed, “that’s it.” Her eyes were wild and welling up with tears, and you took your small sliver of opportunity to hurt her in a way you didn’t know you wanted to. 

“Fuck, I’m going to – “, she bit down hard on her own tongue as she used both hands to press your body into hers in ways that would definitely have bruised if you bruised anymore, and you rode out her orgasm with her. You felt her tighten, then loosen around your four fingers, and the marks on her body slowly heal up, leaving only smears of blood down her chest and stomach. You rolled over from your awkward position half on top of her to lay on your side of the bed, back up, not looking at her. 

“I won’t bother to ask if that was good for you,” she said. “And I won’t return the favor. I know you wish I was her.” 

You had been with no one else, and your confusion must have been evident because she laughed in your face. She lay languid now, propped up on one side, hair like a curtain, and you turned to look at her. She was a little flushed, color high on her cheeks. 

“It’s okay. Sometimes I wish you were someone else too. You know…” her voice was soft. “Corona used to cut my hair for me when she thought it got too long.” Ianthe picked up and idly played with the scissors, discarded on the bedroom side table. “

Not the same, of course.” A little too quickly. “You won’t tell anyone.” 

“No,” you said. 

“Good girl,” she said, and curled her body around your own. You didn’t move, and for a moment she tried to rearrange your limbs to fit hers, but then gave up and turned over. 

You sat up, legs moving over the edge of the bed, and slowly redressed yourself before lying down, back to her. 

In the corner of the room, facing you, the Body stood, motionless, watching you as she had always been. It was going to be another sleepless night, so you stared at the Body instead, memorizing every curve of her, every angle, down to the texture of her skin and the spacing of her eyelashes. 

The Body never looked away.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Twitter now, and I take oneshot requests in my DMs! @/lighterdenial (private because I write 18+ content)
> 
> This is a weird, dark, strange little thing and it's full of hate and longing and suffering, but it stuck in my brain and wouldn't leave so... I'm inflicting it on other people too. Enjoy some terrible Harryanthe. 
> 
> Title from the Daughter song "No Care" which I consider VERY on brand for Harrow/Ianthe. 
> 
> Sorry but also thank you for reading!


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